Some younger friends have asked me what is mother wit, and why would I create a blog with that title. It's a mostly southern term, and one that I learned growing up in Monroe, LA. A good basic definition is:

mother wit n.Innate intelligence or common sense.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin  Company.  Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

 

 

I like to call it good common sense. It's the things your mother or other respected adults taught you during your childhood that stick with you throughout your entire life. It's knowing that if you stick your hand in fire, it's going to burn or knowing that there can be consequences to choices that you make.

 

Sometimes we can get so highly educated and esoteric in our thinking that common sense goes by the wayside as we attempt to analyze and study every issue that comes up in our lives. Now I'm not discounting education, because education has certainly brought me a mighty long way as a baby boomer woman of color. But let us not lose sight (or sense) of our innate, God-given talents with which we are all born.

 

God make each of us as uniquely as snowflakes, and He knew us before we were formed in our mothers' wombs. We each possess a special mixture of DNA that is uniquely ours, just like our fingerprints. Down deep inside of us there exists that common, innate, natural gift for discerning what is good and what is not, However we choose to filter it with our personal beliefs, common sense, or mother wit, is deep within us.

 

This blog attempts to offer insights into instances in which an abundance or great lack of mother wit occurs in my everyday life in sunny Sarasota, FL.